One of the most important steps in the process of designing a direct mail advertising piece is to nail down the big picture. Focus on who you are trying to reach and decide the two or three points you want to make. Don’t make the direct mailer so general that no one understands what you are saying or what you want them to do.

You want to target a specific age, gender, or interest group and have a “call to action” in the mailer. You will need to tell them to call, bring the coupon to the store or have them do something that will bring about viable results. So plan your message and match the message to a mailing list of customer prospects that would be interested in what you have to offer.

Plan your direct mail campaign with these simple tips:

The Offer

The reason for sending the direct mail piece should be reflected in your offer. What is the incentive that will make it hard for a customer to simply throw the mailer in the trash? You need to attract the reader’s attention and compel them to respond. Base your message on your target audience. Your mail list should have information that allows you to format a sub list of prospects that will benefit from your products or services.

Ask yourself a few questions as you are formulating your message. Why would a potential customer need your product or service? How will this product or service benefit the customer and why is your offer different from others on the market? The most important question is what you want your potential customer to do once they’ve read the direct mail collateral?

Make sure the design and message of the offer relates to the audience you are targeting. It will need to reflect your business objectives and create excitement by appealing to the customer’s emotions. You want to create a sense of urgency while providing a clear and easy way for the customer to act on the information.

Call to Action

It is important to clearly state what you want your customer to do once they’ve read your mailer. The mailer won’t work if the customer just reads the information and files it away. Tell them several times how to respond to your offer. This act might be to make a call, take a coupon to the store, or to fill out a prepaid postcard to send back to you. You might invite them to visit your website and sign up with an email for a specific offer.

Just make sure you clearly state what action you want them to take and urge them to take that action now. This is often done by putting a time limit on the offer.

Once the customer responds, make sure you are set up to track the information. It is important to count any inquiries you receive or the coupons that are redeemed. Analyzing the results of the direct mail advertising campaign will allow you to see what works and make changes to future mailings.

Running a Test

After you’ve determined your target market and the marketing message you want to send, do a test of your direct mailer. You can do this by sending out the direct mail piece to a smaller list of prospects. Each test mailer will be sent to a small list of prospects with a few things changed on each one. Vary the offer, the length of the message or the color of the paper.

Carefully track the results of these test mailers to find out which one results in more responses. Make sure you track responses versus orders. Once you’ve done the test mailers, make sure you use the winners in your larger campaign.

Budget For Your Direct Mail Advertising

In order to determine your budget for the mailer it is important to first get a handle on the costs of the different options. Research items such as how much it would cost to rent a mailing list or hire a writer or graphic designer. Compare how much it would be to print the direct mail piece yourself versus using a printer or an online direct mail website that would allow you to design, print and send the piece from the site.

Check the pricing for postcards, letters, or brochures. If you are going to provide a coupon will it be a separate piece or will it be attached to the mailer itself? Get an estimate on postage for various sized mailing pieces.

Once you’ve gathered the cost estimates it is time to decide how much money you can spend on the mailer. Keep a detailed list of expenditures so you can bump the costs against the tracked responses and eventually determine if the campaign generated profit.

The US Postal Service has a program tailor-made for those companies who wish to learn how to implement a direct mail campaign. This method is used to increase your business by getting out a call to action. It is important to learn everything you can about this marketing method. The more imaginative and organized you are, the better the results will be.

On the US Postal Website at http://www.usps.com there is a direct mail center that will provide you with information and tips on how to run a Direct Mail Advertising Campaign and make it produce the results you want.

US Postal Website

This website will help you understand Direct Mail and allow you to learn how to utilize marketing collateral to grow your customer base. You will also learn how to plan your first campaign. This planning includes showing you how to budget and how to design your first offering.

The website will also walk you through how to build a mailing list and how to maintain the list effectively. There is information on software that can assist you with the design and printing of a mail piece with a professional appearance. This website also has tools to help you figure out the most cost-effective way to mail your Direct Mail pieces.

How to Start

Start by looking at the direct mail pieces you receive at home every day. What do you like about them? What pieces make you stop and look, and which ones do you barely glance at before you toss? If you have responded recently to direct mail collateral you need to spend some time and figure out why you responded and what about the ad appealed to you.

Then spend a few minutes and narrow your focus. Who are the customers you are trying to appeal to? Define your target market by gender, age and other things. Then make sure you understand what motivates them.

Mail List

It is important to create an appropriate mail list. If your product or services are targeted toward senior citizens, you don’t want a mail list made up of thirty year olds. Your ultimate goal is to have a list that is tailored to your company’s specific needs. The more focused your list, the better chance you have of getting customers to read your mailer instead of throwing it away.

Writing Direct Mail Collateral

Since you’ve already decided who you are marketing to, now you need to define what message you want to deliver. The easiest way to do this is define one or two objectives that you want to deliver to your target market.

It’s time to design the collateral and write the text. Keep your objectives and your audience in mind and then start writing as if you are speaking directly to one of these customers. Use easily understood terms and words. Stay focused on your outlined objectives. Then spend time focusing on the headline. This is one of the most important pieces of the collateral because many people will not go past these first few words if you don’t capture their attention.

If your target market is young women who have children, find someone who fits this profile and have them read the direct mail piece. Get their comments and input and make any changes before you complete the design. You may want to do this several times before you finalize the direct mail collateral.

What is the hook? Make sure it’s not just the price, but what the customer will get for that price. Your marketing piece should highlight what makes your store, product, or service special. Hook the customer with the benefits and when they get to the price they shouldn’t be turned off.

Pricing

While it is important to sell the benefits of your product or service, if what you are selling creates sticker shock, you’ve lost a potential customer. Many direct mail campaigns fail solely on price. Make sure you’ve done your market research on the pricing and make sure the customer has a reason to call you. If you are unreasonably priced, you’ve wasted the money for the mailer.

Call To Action

When you were designing your mailer you focused on the message you wanted to deliver. Part of that message should have been what you want your customers to do. Make sure you tell them what to do next. You can’t reap the rewards if they just look at the mailer and file it away for later.

Did you want them to send in a card for more information? Then you need to tell them to send it in, not once, but two or three times. They won’t act if you don’t tell them what to do, so make sure the needed actions are spelled out in the mailer. For example, “Bring this card to the store before Memorial Day and besides the 10% off on widgets, we will give you a free six inch potted plant.”

Now that you know what direct mail advertising is and how it works, it is time to consider how to implement this type of promotional material into your business.  You may wish to work with an advertising firm or company to help you with this process.  The advertising firm will provide you with all of the design and implementation of the program for you.  They will give you proposals of your options, help you to find leads to mail to and may even run the program themselves.

Hiring a professional to manage a direct mail campaign is an option you have, though it is not the only option available.  Many organizations will place a larger investment into an advertising firm to handle this, but many small businesses will do well doing so locally, on their own.  For example, if you own the local retail hardware store, a mailing list obtained from your local chamber of commerce can be used to mail sales flyers to each of your potential customers within your city.  This can be done in house.

To find direct mail lists, you should invest in the right companies to provide them. Mailing lists are readily sold by companies who have them, to those who need them.  These lists are often risky business unless they are combing from a reputable source. The problem is the number of people who have asked to be removed from them, or those that do not live at the addresses provided.  If you do purchase mailing lists to use in your direct marketing mail program, be sure the list is currently, has not been sold repeatedly and has been updated recently.

Direct mail advertising is one of the best ways to let people know about your home and the services you have to offer to them.  While there are many other methods to get word out, direct mail continues to be one of the most sought after methods for those in the retail industry. Travel industries, insurance companies and loan or credit card companies also use this method of advertising since it is so powerful.  As you consider all options you have for marketing your business, do not overlook the simple, but proven and affordable direct mail marketing option.  It may just be what you need it to be.

Direct mail advertising is one of the staples in terms of advertising methods.  It has been so for some time and virtually everyone who gets mail knows the various methods used in this form of advertising. To get your message out to people who may be interested, consider using direct mail.  What you may find is that this relatively low cost method of advertising does yield large profits for many businesses. Those who use this form of advertising may find themselves with various options to choose from. Direct mail is profitable, not boring or overdone.

In order to be profitable, direct mail advertising methods must be used properly. In direct mail marketing, as it is often called, the advertising message is sent directly to the customer.  This means that any other type of media is not used.  There is no television commercial or any online banner ad that directs customers to the information; it comes directly from the company promoting the product or service.

There are various forms of direct mail to select from. Some common types include all forms of commercial communication including direct postal mail, email messages, and telemarketing calls.) Commercial calls are made to consumers or to businesses in the same way. In nearly all cases, direct mail is unsolicited, meaning that the person receiving this information is not in any way asking to receive it. Because of this, it is important for any direct mail campaign to stick to legal requirements of the state and federal government on sending unsolicited mailings.

Another difference in direct mail methods over other forms of advertising is that it gives a direct call to action.  The well written letter sent to potential customers alerts them to a discount and informs them to take action now, for example. This direct call to action is often the reason so many of these direct mail campaigns do so well. The campaign is very focused and provides specific goals that are traceable and measureable by the company performing the advertising method.  Often, this allows for the company to measure all positive response from those who have been solicited, though it is rare for any negative feedback ever to be used to judge the success, or failure, of the program.

Types of Direct Marketing

There are many ways that direct marketing is used.  Each method includes a different focus.  These types include:

• Direct Mail Methods
• Telemarketing Methods
• Integrated Campaigns
• Direct Response Television Marketing
• Direct Selling
• Email Marketing
• Broadcast Faxing Marketing
• Voicemail Marketing
• Couponing
• Others

Of these, the one to focus on is direct mail marketing.  The direct mail methods of marketing are often the ones used most readily. Consumers refer to direct mail as junk mail, and you probably have this type of mail in your mailbox just about every day.  This is a form of paper mail sent through the postal service.  This medium comes in various forms: letters, sales pages, and postcards, for example.  Direct mail includes preapproved credit card offers, free trails, merchandising invitations, circulars and catalogs, as well as many other forms.

Direct mail is most effective when the mail is delivered to those who are targeted leads, or those who are already interested or could be readily interested in the product.  Targeted leads are available and readily used by most businesses who use direct mail.  By sending mail to those who seem to be interested, the rate of return on investment is higher than a blind investment or sending a bulk advertising to thousands of people who may have no interest in the products or services.